Course Introduction

This course was designed for and taught to 140 11th and 12th grade civil construction students at the Technical School in Assomada, Cape Verde during the 2008-2009 school year. It is an example of a goal-oriented teaching style for a high school drafting class. The class covers the themes and objectives in the state-required curriculum for the Technical Drafting Course. A revised curriculum can be found at Appendix A and B (in Portuguese). The objective of the class is to learn and draft a house.

Annual Course Schedule, School Numbers

The specific dates and number of weeks of each trimester are subject to change. Classes are also subject to unannounced cancellation due to rain, local events and holidays. Thus as a teacher, it is more important to focus more on completing the activity rather than rushing through to finish by a certain date.

In two years, I taught over 200 students. However, I didn’t develop this coursework until my second year. My second year I taught 140 students – seven classes of about 20 students per class. I’d estimate my school had about 1000 students of which about 20% were girls. 40 teachers (estimate) facilitated these 1000 students.

Daily Class Structure

Every class lasts two hours:First 5 minutes – the teacher writes the date and class summary on the board and takes roll.Next 15 minutes – the teacher introduces the assignment for the day, discusses the details of the plan, when the plan is due and what the students will be graded on (all of this information is put on the board). If plans are due that day students can turn in papers at this time.Next 10 minutes – questions, clarificationsNext 5 minutes – hand out paperRest of class – workEnd of class – thank them for their behavior (if it was good) and hard work (if they worked hard) and repeat when the assignment is due. (Each class works at a different pace – at the end of each class the teacher may make adjustments to the due date).

Required Materials

Students are expected to come to class everyday with a pencil, notebook and a drafting square (this costs about 100 escudos). If students cannot afford or manage their materials, they may share materials. The teacher will provide copies of example plans, research materials and blank A4 paper for drafting (may have to purchase paper and copies out of pocket).

Grading

The trimester grade is broken into two test grades (40% each) and one teacher’s evaluation grade (20%). Student’s grades are submitted and entered into the school database at the end of each trimester. This grade is averaged at the end of the year and summed up for each 11th and 12th grade level, weighed at 45% and 55% respectively. For this course, I took the grades from each drawing depending on the total possible points and divided their grade into two test grades.

Late work - For every week the students turn in work late, I deducted 5-10 points from the student’s grade. The amount depends on the discretion of the teacher and weight of the assignment.

Classroom Management

20% of student’s grades are an OEA grade. This grade measures a student’s classroom attendance, participation, preparedness and behavior. Every teacher has a different method of evaluation and all are equally as valid. This method is simple in theory, difficult in practice - tough but fair. Although the school administration believed it was too rigorous, this method was designed to prepare students for the workplace. Reasoning: at a job, if you come late, unprepared or don’t behave, you can’t effectively do work. The same rules should apply to a classroom:

Students are expected to come to class on-time, with all required materials and behave. If they do this everyday, they will receive a check.

Procedure: At the beginning of each class, the teacher calls roll. If the student is present, he/she receives a check. If they arrive late (<10m mark tardy, after 10m they must wait until the second hour), they receive a zero. Zero indicates zero credit for the day. If the students make no effort to work on the given assignment, they will lose their check and receive a zero for the day. If the students misbehave, they will lose their check and receive a zero for the day.

What constitutes tardiness, non-participation or misbehavior is to be determined by the teacher. The teacher may offer warnings before marking a zero. If non-participation or misbehavior continues after a zero has been issued, the teacher may remove the student from the class.

At the end of each trimester when grades are due, the teacher will count the number of checks each student has and divide by the number of total days he/she took roll. Then the teacher will multiply this ratio by 20. This is the OEA, teacher’s evaluation, grade. (See Appendix C – Class Grading Example).

Teaching Style Notes

Everyone’s teaching style is different. For this particular class, these are a few style suggestions that helped improve student behavior/performance:
- Learn and use student’s names
- Walk up and down the aisles during class to speak with students individually. (This establishes a personal relationship with the students, which improves behavior and overall quality of the work)
- Encourage students to think critically and creatively about their work
- When explaining the assignment, be as detailed or as brief as you feel comfortable
- Try to find a lesson that challenges the quicker students and keeps the slower ones up to speed. Everyday you have to find that balance. Offer/assign extra work to students ahead, walk through assignments with students behind. Pair students of different strengths together, if possible.
- The tighter your lesson plan is (easier it is to understand), the more likely you will have less trouble with misbehavior and the more interested the students will be
- Identify the major idea students should take away from the day/assignment and repeat it frequently
- Repeat daily the importance of taking pride in your work, encourage students to show work to family and friends or to display it on a wall at home,
- Ask them what they want to do when they graduate, try to make thinking about your future cool
- Talk with other professors to see what is normal behavior and not
- Roll with the class, if no one gets it, take a deep breath and slow down

Class Activities

This drafting course is broken down into five separate but related activities – each with a clearly defined project outcome. This way, students are likely to put more effort into their work. Detailed below are each of the projects:

Project 1: Draft map of Santiago to scale 1:1.5

Objectives:

- Review concept of scale,

- Remind students about the geography of the island where they live,

- Teach students to take pride in their work: “Make this map something you want to put on your wall at home.”

Methodology: Each attached plan (located at appendices listed above, F.1-F.8) includes a photocopy of a Cámara plan to be used as example and a corresponding blank sheet of paper with grading rubric, square and legend.File:Studentplans.png

Project 4: Research innovative architecture, sketch new house design

Objectives:

- Learn about new design methods of building houses

- Brainstorm with students on new ideas, share sketches, have fun but stay focused

Methodology: Review various example pictures/designs on pin drive in folder entitled Innovative architecture research (Appendix G). Teacher may research additional ideas on the Internet or demonstrate/explain new designs on the board. Encourage sketching, new “out of the box” designs.

Methodology: Hand out a blank sheet of paper for each plan. Students are expected to draft the square, legend and calculate the scale, design dimensions and margins for each plan. Grading rubric is to be written on the board (could reflect grading rubric from Cámara plan for each corresponding plan). Students may also use any previous or other student plans as examples.

o How to utilize space wisely
o Plan for further growth
o How to plan for community gardens, public spaces, local schools, local markets, sport fields, etc
o How to plan the city to adapt to renewable energy plants
o How to use local, cheap materials to build a model of a plan